Chapter 15
[ 516 words ]
Chapter 15:
“You didn’t fix anything!” Caroline yelled, her eyes burning. “You just proved to him, and to me, that I have zero control over my own life! You don’t care about what I want. You only care about your own obsessive need to control everything around you!”
Jarrod’s jaw tightened. “I am trying to protect you.”
“By humiliating me?” A tear spilled over her lashes, hot and angry. “You didn’t care about the terror I felt yesterday when that blade was at my throat. You don’t care about the humiliation I felt in that office today. You just want to own me.”
Jarrod froze. The word terror seemed to pierce through his armor. His iron grip on her wrist loosened a fraction. A flash of raw, unguarded heartache crossed his stormy eyes, so fast she thought she imagined it.
Ding.
The elevator at the far end of the corridor arrived. The metal doors slid open.
Nurse Brenna O’Malley and three senior hospital administrators stepped out, chatting and holding clipboards.
They looked up. They stopped dead in their tracks.
The sight was explosive. Colonel Jarrod Romero, the terrifying, untouchable Department of Defense advisor, had intern nurse Caroline Thompson cornered against the wall. Their bodies were intimately close, his imposing frame caging her, the tension between them thick enough to cut with a scalpel.
𝗥оma𝘯с𝗲 n𝘰𝗏𝖾𝗹ѕ о𝗇 𝘨а𝗅n𝗈𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘀.𝘤о𝘮
Clatter.
Brenna’s clipboard slipped from her fingers and hit the floor.
The sound snapped the spell. Caroline turned her head and saw her colleagues staring at them with wide, shocked eyes.
A wave of scalding heat rushed up Caroline’s neck and flooded her face. The shame was suffocating. She was the intern. He was the Colonel. And they were caught in a position that screamed of a scandalous, illicit affair.
Taking advantage of Jarrod’s momentary distraction, Caroline yanked her wrist with all her might. She broke free.
She stumbled back a step, putting distance between them. Her hands shook as she frantically smoothed down her rumpled scrub top and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
Jarrod didn’t reach for her again. Instead, he turned his head slowly. He fixed the group of gawking hospital staff with a stare so lethally cold that the administrators physically recoiled. They immediately looked down at their shoes, suddenly very interested in the carpet, pretending they hadn’t seen a thing.
Caroline took a deep, shuddering breath. She looked at Jarrod, her eyes completely devoid of warmth.
“Colonel Romero,” she said, her voice dripping with icy detachment. “Our conversation is over.”
She straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and walked right past him. She didn’t go to the elevators. She pushed open the heavy fire door to the employee stairwell and disappeared inside.
Jarrod stood rooted to the spot. He watched the fire door swing shut, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles ticked. He didn’t follow her.
A few feet away, Dr. Cromwell peeked his head out of his office door, sweating profusely.
Jarrod slowly turned his head and locked eyes with the Chief of Staff.
“Process her reinstatement,” Jarrod ordered, his voice echoing in the dead-silent hallway. “If she is missing a single cent from her next paycheck, I will hold you personally responsible.”
.
.
.
If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.